Time for another change

In just under three weeks I will be be moving on, again. For the past 18 months I have been the chief-sub of Business Report, the South African national business daily newspaper owned by Independent Newspapers. On top of this I was running Tectonic and doing my best to keep my head above water with the Telecommunications Action Group.

Eventually, the unsociable hours, the time not spent with my family, and the never-ending work took its toll and I was forced to make a decision. It was probably inevitable. Tectonic and Tag could be a full-day’s work on any given day; adding another eight hours of intense, deadline-driven daily newspaper action to the mix and something had to give. And so, a couple of days before the Easter long weekend, I resigned and I am planning to leave formal employment at the end of April.

Well, not entirely. I have a rather enticing contract that I am looking forward to, to keep me mostly occupied in the coming months. I don’t want to say too much now because the announcement will be better made when I get down to work. Except to say that I will still be writing technology news as well doing some news editing. More in the coming couple of weeks.

With the remainder of my time I am planning to spend a bit more time building up Tectonic and helping, where I can, with the growth of Treevolution, which is fast becoming a fantastic source of environmental and scientific news. Along the way I will be looking for work doing writing, website building, editing and graphical work (so keep me in mind).

On the one hand I am looking forward to the relative freedom that being mostly freelance will offer. On the other, I am well aware that freelancing is not all about lounging around in your pajamas until noon before heading off for a long lunch. For almost five years before taking my current job I was a freelancer and it has its stresses; and sometimes those stresses are a great deal worse than the ones experienced while in full-time employ.